1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an equipment management device and method for managing equipment, including image input/output devices (e.g., image forming devices, such as printers, copiers, fax machines, and image reading devices, such as scanners).
2. Description of the Related Art
It is known that application programs (software) are installed in some types of equipment, such as image input/output devices, to perform a predetermined function and a method of managing license authentication is used to manage execution of each application program. Management of license authentication is to manage the booting permission (use permission) of the software installed in the equipment by performing license authentication (activation) of the software or canceling the license authentication (deactivation) of the software.
For example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2007-034389, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2005-321850, and Japanese Patent No. 3540506 disclose the composition of license authentication.
However, the composition according to the related art is to perform activation or deactivation of license authentication (including re-use permission of a product key used at a time of activating license authentication) for the equipment by means of an operation part thereof. For this reason, the equipment management method according to the related art has to perform, for each of one or more pieces of the equipment, activation or deactivation of license authentication of software installed in the equipment, which is time-consuming and inconvenient for the user.
When two or more pieces of the equipment exist, it is demanded that the user is able to perform collectively activation or deactivation of the license authentication for all the pieces of the equipment. It is also demanded that the user is able to perform activation or deactivation of the license authentication remotely from a terminal (e.g., a personal computer).